


Saving Mr Bennett

by Waistcoat35



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Angst, Bennett Protection Squad, Bennett is underappreciated and underrepresented in this fandom, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Frenemies to Friends, Friendship, Gen, I don't say that much but hey ho, I love him, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not intended to be shippy but do with it what you will, fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/pseuds/Waistcoat35
Summary: He hates the circus. Really, he does.





	Saving Mr Bennett

**Author's Note:**

> This is a belated birthday gift for the ever-wonderful and amazing phillip-barnum on tumblr! Please enjoy!

He hates the circus. Really, he does.

He despises it from the moment he lays eyes on its newly-painted façade, the garish yellow lettering awakening in him a smouldering distaste for the fake and the overly cheerful. He likes his theatre honest, without peanuts and sawdust and general untidiness and squealing all around as the music deafens his ears. This is what he tells himself when he’s assigned to write a review about the place, and what he keeps telling himself as he’s ushered to the main ring and seated in a chair that sticks to his trousers both in the heat and by something pink and gloopy that he’d rather not know the name of.

He still hates it when the spotlights come on, when the crowds begin to murmur in anticipation before anything’s even _happened_ \- honestly. He watches their ringmaster with well-disguised (or so he tells himself) interest, as one would eye a wayward bird on the sidewalk or an oddly-shaped cloud. Phineas Taylor Barnum is indeed something errant, something out of place in the grey of the city bustle – a smear of ink gone wrong on a freshly printed pile of newspapers.

But if the man looks out of place in the city, that makes the place where he truly fits in all the more jarring. However, the sparkling red silk and birdlike movements as he weaves in and out of the performers does not distract him so much that he can’t make a few scathing notes before the show ends. Needless to say, he does not buy a postcard or a souvenir beard on the way out – not that he needs one of those.

* * *

 

He is sent back time and time again, the press eager for his views whenever a new act or development is added to the show. They offer to pay for the tickets – but such things are needless because every time he has a visit scheduled a little orange slip of card arrives on his doorstep in an envelope. It has no postmark, therefore it must have been hand-delivered. This surprises him far less than it probably should.

Every time he feels his brow crinkle in irritation within only a minute or less of the music starting. Many others have claimed to have harboured dislike at first, and eventually had the performance grow on them – he knows this will not be the case. He cannot take many more shows of this, and so he finds a new technique. When it starts, he deafens himself to the music itself. He strips back the glitter, peels the shine of the lights from his memory like stickers until he is left with the base of the show, its very core without any of Mr. Barnum’s lavish window dressing.

And when he looks at _that_ , he doesn’t quite see an over-embellished roadshow filled with humbug and led by the biggest clown of all. He simply sees people. People who’ve had bits and pieces chipped from them, who appear damaged, but when they come together for one cause their jagged edges somehow fit together and the cracks are healed up again.

Once he sees the people, he sees what the show is supposed to _be_. He sees some semblance of what Barnum has been trying to get at. And he finds himself wondering if the man realises that people do not love the show for the same reason he _made_ the show. Bennett has come to respect the core of the concept. The audience has fallen in love with the packaging it is carried in.

Perhaps that’s why he asks what he asks when they run into one another afterwards.

_“Does it bother you – that everything you’re selling is fake?”_

He isn’t sure why his stomach sinks slightly straight afterwards, why he is anticipating with resignation the falling of the smile from Phineas’ face, expecting to be told not to bother coming back. It is for these reasons that he is pleasantly – pleasantly? The music has been addling his brain – surprised when that is not the case.

_“Do these smiles seem fake? It doesn’t matter where they come from – the joy is real.”_ The man apparently knows full well why the show is liked, but he is also a rare breed – that which focuses first and foremost on bringing joy. They are becoming ever scarcer these days.

Bennett goes to the circus with a scowl on his face. The one he leaves with is bigger, and accompanied by several things – an envelope full of tickets ( _“Bring some friends sometime – maybe they can help you to get in the swing of it!”_ ) an invitation to judge a baby show, and something peculiar that he cannot name, curling his lips whenever he looks up at the blasted _sign._ Still the man continues to vex him.

* * *

 

His review afterwards is still scathing nonetheless – he is not a man to be browbeaten. However, it is not as bad as its predecessor – and left deliberately devoid of the word _circus_. He will not say that he used the term unthinkingly in his review, because he is a man of few words, and after hoarding each one not spoken and carefully picking out the right ones for each review he writes he cannot afford to be careless. But he used it without consideration of all it implied, and that Barnum would take it, cling to it, emblazon it upon his building as proudly as he had taken every other insult.

Despite the comparative mildness of the column, he feels a stab to his chest when he sees the pictures of the ensuing brawl outside the entrance in the headlines. (He wonders, dourly, whether the feeling is one his parents always threatened that he’d learn – responsibility.) He knows, deep down, that something like that would have happened anyway – street violence and misogyny parading around in the guise of justice like a wolf in sheep’s clothing is all too common in this city, in this _age_. But the review is reprinted and taken in and used to gain cheap admission, and somehow it all feels like an accusation.

Bennett has never enjoyed hearing the term _freak_. It is not used to describe bad things – simply to highlight _other_ ness, to single out anybody on the outskirts of what is considered acceptable and make them run, as the fox does when hit by the farmer’s torchlight. He knows the word intimately from every edge and angle, has felt its ragged burn across his skin from too many days spent reading or scribbling in a little notepad instead of talking as a boy. Children can be cruel, but so can adults, and this knowledge does nothing to lessen his hurt.

It would seem he has now entered into kinship with the performers, and as such he cannot stay away for good, even after the fight. He cannot bring himself to use one of the tickets, feels as though they are a gift that he spurned right after getting them, but he paces and listens and keeps an eye out for trouble, and as people start filing out again with their fake smiles and exhilarated laughs, he loses himself in the crowd, so as to avoid the man himself.

He does, however, buy a postcard. It is only for Hortense to cheer her up during her illness, of course – he tells himself this all the while, and it is only after handing the money to O’Malley that he curses himself for appearing as though the purchase were some kind of peace offering. It isn’t, and there’s no reason for anybody to think that – he tells himself this even as he listens to one of his sister’s rare chuckles as she admires the miniature of the horses trotting a ring around their master.

He still hates the circus, and ends up going to judge the damn baby show because there was no physical way to remove his name from the list. He gets a far less malicious form of revenge in his newspaper column.

* * *

 

When he hears about the fire, he feels as though he might retch. Within seconds his mind is already filled with images of screaming onlookers as the troupe are reduced to glittering embers and piles of ash inside, of animal bones still sprawled around the steps, before he hears the gossipers next words and knows that everybody’s okay.

More or less, at least. The Carlyle boy has been hospitalised after trying to save somebody inside – the trapeze girl, he hears. There is something to her wit that reminds him of himself in his younger years – he’s glad she’s alright. As for Phillip – that boy’s had enough injuries to deal with in his own home. Bennett is not a perfect man, but nor is he a blind one – and he knows that drinking problems and tragic plays always stem from a source.

And Barnum. He is tired of lying, and for once will not disguise the stuttering in his chest when he heard of his dash into the inferno. The man has always reminded him far too much of a phoenix for comfort.

He goes to the office, sees the headlines, and knows he has to go. It is quite possibly the only thing he has ran for since a visit to his sister’s bedside – the visit he had thought was going to be his last. Indeed, seeing the man slumped on the steps has an air of unsettling finality to it, and it rings too close to home, so he stops, sits, offers his flask.

There are many things he could tell Barnum. Why he keeps coming back to the circus. (To escape the quiet of his apartment and the thunderous clacking of his office and his niece’s coughs reverberating through his ears, because his recounts of the music and lights and animals make her perk up like nothing else has since she started to become ill-) Why he is drawn to the man himself. (Because he has spent months with doctors discussing a young life that might end too soon and he’s counting out the visits in case he doesn’t get another one and the whole thing feels like an uphill path and a downward spiral and for once, just once, he needs something that isn’t predictable, that he doesn’t have to map out and plan for and worry over-)

But the silence between them is not one that should be cut by more tragedy, and so he tells him his opinion. The one he can’t polish up for his readers and couple with his usual disdain – the one he’s carried since he saw the whole thing for what it is. What it _was_.

And it would seem that honesty for honesty is the rule of even the showman, because suddenly Barnum looks raw and genuine, and Bennett feels he can trust a lot more of what he says when he isn’t smiling. As they sit together, Phineas no longer looking quite so defeated, he feels not like Phineas has fallen to his level but that he has almost risen to Barnum’s. Not quite, of course.

_“I hope you’ll rebuild,”_ he says, and he means it for both of them – not just for his own means of distraction.

However, the momentary peace is just that. Soon enough, he has to show him the paper. He doesn’t want to – he wasn’t there, didn’t take the picture, ( _but would you have, if you were there?_ A wicked little voice asks, which he resolutely ignores) but just like before, he still feels responsible for all of the man’s woe.

_“I’m sorry.”_ His voice cracks slightly on the words, and he thinks it’s because he’s sorry for an awful lot of things. He’s sorry for the reviews, he’s sorry that he’s a _freak_ who can’t find the same joy in candy stripes and coloured lights that everyone else does, he’s sorry for Phillip, he’s sorry for Hortense, he’s sorry for each and every little thing about the world that has made things turn out like _this_ – but Barnum doesn’t hear or doesn’t understand, because he’s already running, and Bennett returns to his apartment filled with static silence and tries to blot out the clamouring in his mind with the clacking of the typewriter keys.

He thinks the hatred still burning in his chest and behind his eyes might actually be directed towards himself.

* * *

 

The next time Bennett visits, he spends about ten minutes arguing, insisting on paying full fare before O’Malley reaches over and whips one of the free tickets from his pocket, so fast that he doesn’t realise it until the slip has been put in the register and he’s being shunted along by the rest of the line.

For the first time visiting the place, he has to admit a fraction of his awe – the new tent is somehow entirely fitting for the troupe of misfits and their flamboyant ringleader. It isn’t rigid like a building – it bends with the wind, and manages to be regal without being too grounded. The crimson and ivory striping reminds him, once again, of Phineas Taylor Barnum. He huffs, shakes his head to try and return himself to normalcy. He has always snubbed pieces in which one is reminded of somebody simply by looking at an object, by feeling the wind in their hair or catching a certain scent, sure that such things were only cliché and carried no truth.

It is now at least the second or third time he has been forced to eat his words in the face of this ridiculous production and an ever-more ridiculous man.

He picks his way along the rows to his allotted seat, and when he looks to his left he finds himself face to face with Phillip Carlyle. He surprises even himself by giving the young man a legitimate smile, and anybody who asks whether he has grown fond of the boy will be met with vehement denial and sent packing – but that doesn’t mean they aren’t right.

“Mr Carlyle, it’s good to see you looking better. I have to admit, I – along with everybody else – was worried when I heard about what happened.” Phillip seems slightly confused as to why Bennett has apparently had a personality transplant, but greets him just as he always has.

“Please, Mr Carlyle is the name of my – “ he swallows slightly, “never mind. But honestly, Phillip is perfectly fine after all the time we’ve known one another.” He offers Bennett a smile of his own, and he notes that Carlyle seems different – more _open_ , somehow, than before, and looks more like he might smile at any moment than flinch away from somebody. He knows now that what he has always felt for Phillip deep in his chest is responsibility, although it is warmer than that which he felt after the mobs, after the fire, tempered and carefully smoothed over and dogeared with its age.

“I’m _feeling_ a lot better, in all honesty. I’m still a little sore every so often, but I’m pretty much healed up. Thank you, though – for asking, I mean.” Bennett nods, and he doesn’t tell Phillip that he’s welcome because they’ve read so many of one another’s words that they seldom need to use any when conversing. Next, he decides to take something of a risk.

“And your parents, how – how are they?” Phillip stiffens slightly, but Bennett keeps his posture loose and his gaze nonchalant, asking everything and yet demanding nothing. He has never been blind to what goes on in that family – but they cannot talk about it until Phillip allows it. The younger man clears his throat as if there is a lump there, and when he next speaks he sounds proud.

“I – I wouldn’t know, actually. I haven’t really, you know, spoken to them in a while.” They exchange a look, Phillip finally meeting Bennett’s eyes, and it says nothing but means everything. They are interrupted, then, as the music starts. Both have their gazes drawn away from one another as they become fixated on the spectacle – Phillip perhaps too fixated on the ringmaster himself.

In the musical bridge, Phillip starts suddenly, Bennett glancing over to see if he’s well. He gives the older man a reassuring smile, getting out of his seat and crouching over best he can to avoid obscuring anybody else’s view – such is the man’s way, so afraid to take up space and yet so willing to give it. He beckons to Bennett, who gets up, perplexed.

“I think I’ve got to pass him something for this bit,” Phillip whispers when they get out of the isle. “Come on, I can get you a view backstage.” After that Bennett is basically tugged along, helpless to resist Phillip’s enthusiasm and not entirely willing to. When they get there, he watches from a few feet away as a bemused Phillip is handed P.T.’s cane and hat, dashes into the fray to finally fit into a bigger puzzle that welcomes him with open arms.

Then his gaze is no longer on Phillip, because Phineas is in front of him again for the first time since the fire. The man grins as though he cherishes Bennett’s company, and he notes warily that this being confuses him more and more every day. Phineas is shaking his hand, still with that appraising smile, somewhat like a Cheshire cat. He notes with a vague, growing sense of terror that this man knows where he lives.

“Well, well, Mr Bennett. Or James. Can I call you James?” He has never let anybody call him James – nobody except for Hortense. Mr Bennett has been his writing alias for so long that it feels safer – more like _him_ than his given name. He sighs, resigned.

“Only so long as you don’t change it to _Jimbo_ or some other blasted nickname.” The grin widens, grows ever more dangerous. Oh dear – he’s put the thought in P.T’s head now.

“Of course not. Do you think you could tell me what some critics have been saying about the show, now that we’re back?” Bennett swallows, steels his grip.

“I’m not too sure about all of them – there is one who’s opinion I’ve come to know very well though.”

“Oh?” The man’s eyebrows have quirked ridiculously high.

“Yes, yes. A rather quiet man – doesn’t have very many associates, you understand. He tends to put them off.”

Phineas’ gaze seems to grow more understanding. “I don’t believe he can be all that bad, if he’s been saying good things about our circus.” The man has truly changed, then – before it was _my_ circus, _my_ show, _my_ performance. He has learned to be a piece of the puzzle rather than solely the orchestrator of it.

“Well, we shall see. He’s had a lot of unhappiness strike his family, lately – and I believe he finds the show to be a perfect distraction. It makes his niece happy, as well – he’d like to take her, someday. If he gets the chance. All in all, he thinks that this show isn’t fake – it changes as it needs to, does what it can to get by in a world that’s changing far too much, far too fast. It provides refuge for anybody, welcomes people of all shapes, sizes, colours. It gives people happiness in what little ways it can, scrounges up revolution out of revelry.” He sighs, and it could probably make the tent flaps billow. Phineas’ grip has become tighter as he listens intently.

“He thinks that your show exists to provide a home for those who don’t always feel like they had one.”

Phineas regards him almost gravely, nods, and suddenly the smile is back again, warmer rather than an all-encompassing brightness. His hand holds Bennett’s more loosely than before and yet it feels sturdier, safer – like the hugs he gets from Hortense when he visits, sometimes frail and yet better than the strongest embrace there is.

“Tell this critic that I appreciate his honesty – more than most would care to admit. And – and if there’s anything I can do, at all, I’d be happy to – especially after what he’s done for us. If his niece ever wants to visit then there’ll be one of the best seats in the house waiting for her, and a backstage tour – I’ll be sure to send tickets when he wants to bring her. And tell him – tell him he’s very brave. For a lot of reasons. Especially for speaking for the circus and pushing it to be what it is now.” They’re matched in height, but Bennett suddenly feels a lot smaller in the face of this strange, strange man.

“Tell him that if he ever needs a home, he’s got one right here.” And with that, both the spell and the handshake – that had become something more of a handclasp – are broken, and with a final nod and a glance at his watch, Phineas heads off towards the elephant pens.

When Bennett visits his niece that night, there is a brightness in her eyes that he hasn’t seen in what feels like an age, and an envelope of tickets on her bedside table.

In his next review, the circus is upped from two stars to three and a half.

He really does hate the circus. Honestly, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Bennett's ill niece was originally phillip-barnum's idea so please give them credit for that.


End file.
